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Saturday, November 26, 2016

If there is such a thing, I think I have it. Today I don't have to work and had my entire day free to sew. Well, I did sew but I kept bouncing around to different projects and not really finishing anything. Oh well, at least I did get some things done!

First thing was the cowboy quilt that needs sashing. I got three rows sewed together. Why didn't I just sew them all you ask? Bored. Switched to another project. But even just making progress on it is motivating to me and I'll get back to it.

The other thing I worked on was finishing up the pieces of the mystery quilt by Meadow Mist Designs for the month of November. Done! Here is my project box with all the little units we've done so far. I usually stick the fabrics to the lid of my box in their proper order so I don't forget which fabric is which when I do the clues.

I posted yesterday about the blocks I am going to be making one at a time now and then. I'm going to keep it up on my design wall to keep me motivated. Block 1 is hung! You can see that I doubled the size of the blocks that I was originally making. They were way too tiny. I would have never got them done.

And finally, I need my quilting friends to please weigh in with what you would do on this next project. I had some scraps left over from making my nieces quilt and sewed them together into this:

This measures about 16 1/4" so not big enough for much of anything except maybe a small pillow or a doll quilt. I would like to enlarge it and make it into a small quilt for my 2 year old granddaughter to have. So I looked in my stash and found these fabrics:

The fabrics in the back came in a fat quarter club back right before I quit piecing quilts. They are from a 2007 RJR Fabrics collection called Wiggles and Giggles by Thimbleberries. The bunny fabric was sent to me along with a book readalong I participated in (thanks, Tami!) Anyway, that's a lot of patterns going on there so I probably need something solid or tone on tone to go along with these. What patterns come to mind when you see all this? What would you use? Leave out? Add? The little rail fence block would be in the middle so looking for ideas on how to enlarge it to about 36 x 36 or maybe a little larger. Would you use different colors than these? I would sincerely love to hear as many ideas as I can. My brain is just not in designing mode right now . . . and I also love collaborating!

Friday, November 25, 2016

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your loved ones. We had a nice get-together with family, scrumptious food and now it's time to sew!

I am wanting to make a quilt for my bed using this block pattern. But sloooowly. One block at a time ever now and then. My goal is to make this using ONLY fabric that I already have. This is a sample of one I started a long time ago but the blocks were too small so I am starting over (these are 4 inch blocks and I want them to be 8).

It is a pattern that I found quite a few years ago but I cannot remember where. Each block uses 8 HST's with contrasting colors, 4 solid squares of the dark and 4 solid squares of the dark.

I found a tutorial for quickly making 8 HST's and it works spendidly! So I will share it with you. This can be found in many places all over the internet so I don't know who first came up with it.

Step 1--The Math
Start with deciding what size of finished HST's you want to make (in my case two inch) and add 7/8 inch to that. Take that total (2 7/8") and double it. 2 x 2 7/8" = 5 3/4"

Cut two 5 3/4" squares, one light and one dark and place them right sides together.

Step 2--Stitching the HST's

On the back of one of the squares, draw lines from corner to corner and sew 1/4" inch on each side of the lines drawn.

Step 3--Cut the HST's

Keep the block stationery while cutting and pick up ruler carefully so as not to shift the fabric. There will be four cuts. One from side to side, one from top to bottom, and two on the drawn "X" lines. The picture below shows only two of the cuts (sorry, I forgot to take a picture of all four).

I have been sewing for years without cutting myself with a rotary cutter and today I got careless and tried to do something else while holding the open blade. Oops! Knicked my thumb and got a drop of blood on my block! Lucky for me, it landed right on the seam allowance so won't be showing anywhere. Whew!

Once all your cuts are made, voila! 8 half square triangles. It is best to measure them to make sure each one is 2 1/2" square to make sure your finished size is 2 inches. Here they are all trimmed up.

Combined with the four solid light squares and four solid dark squares, here is the first block of my someday bed quilt!

It feels good to get back at creating again! This will be a nice project to just make a block every now and then in between other projects. I would love to hear what you have been working on. 😊

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Surprise!! I decided to change things up around here. Do you like my new page design? I am so happy with it! (although I really do need a new picture of me, I better work on that) Emily at Blogaholic Designs took my vision and helped me create what I was imagining. And she was very good to work with. If you're thinking of sprucing up your blog, give her a try!

I am looking forward to getting a lot of sewing done this weekend while I have a few days off of work. Both mine and my daughter-in-law. She asked me to teach her how to sew so I spent a few hours with her last week teaching her how. She has already dreamed up some projects she wants to make so that's one of the things we'll be working on. I probably won't be able to share pictures yet because they are going to be Christmas gifts but I'll be sure to take some and share later!

In the meantime, since this is a blog about color, I'll just share a beautiful view I saw on the way to work the other day Isn't this wonderful? No editing done. This is straight out of the camera.

Wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving. Be sure and count those blessings!

Sunday, November 20, 2016

I get so excited when I meet another quilter. You already have something you love in common right off the bat so it's like running into an old friend. I met one of these last week! My good friend Wes (who works in the same office I do) knows that I like quilting and on a day he was meeting his sister for lunch, he had her come in to introduce us to each other and she brought a quilt with her! What a fun surprise!!

Meet Alfie! She's short like me!! Here she is with her beautiful Stack and Whack quilt. These are just phone pictures so they aren't the greatest. But you can still see how beautiful the quilt is.

Here is a closeup of one of the blocks.

I should have taken pictures of the back (which is in the same beautiful blue as the sashing because it was quilted with a beautiful variegated thread. I'm still learning this blogging thing. :)

A Stack and Whack quilt is on my want-to-make-someday list.

I haven't been very good at writing posts because I really wanted to have something finished to show but then I realized a lot of the blogs I read are always showing their WIP's (works in progress)and lots of other things and I really enjoy reading about what they are up to. So I'm going to stop being so hard on myself and just talk about whatever I feel like even if it isn't a quilt finish. I am still working on quilting the green and purple chevron and heart quilt and also other little things in between.

One of the other little projects is a mystery quilt. I have never done one of those. We got our fabric recommendations, cutting instructions, and once a month new instructions about what to sew together. So here is my progress for today. A bunch of flying geese and some half finished square in a squares. Hopefully I'll get those finished this week. I'm liking how its looking!

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a lover of color. To give you an idea just how much color, here is a picture of my shoes on our rug. Yes, I know this would drive some of you batty to live with this much color but I have been blessed with a family who tolerates it. Thank goodness!

It isn't quite so blinding when you see the whole picture. We just moved into a newly remodeled tiny little farmhouse and this is the view of the front room so far (it needed some color). I should have picked up all the shoes and stuff hanging on the door ready to go out to the car but oh well! Kinda bare right now but it's a work in progress. :) Next project, hang the TV on the wall and figure out a cute way to hide the DVD player, VHS player and cords.

I am joining the trunk show at Whims and Fancies where we were invited to show our 2016 finishes.

This will be the shortest trunk show ever since I only have five small finishes. Oh for more time in the day! It's kind of ironic that out of my first five finishes, only one of them has lots of bright color. Those of you who have been following me for a while are probably tired of seeing these, but I promise I will have something new to show you in the future. I really enjoyed the quilt along that we did with the Shadow Block Mini and will be organizing another short project like that one of these days.

Quilts 1, 3, and 5 were all made out of the same fabric line. Moda Storybook by Kate & Birdie. I bought a layer cake and divided up the squares by the color ways to make three baby quilts. Two small ones, 3 x 4 10-inch squares in pink and yellow, and a little bit larger one in blue that was 4 x 4 10-inch squares. Here they are:

Here is quilt #2

And quilt #5 (miniature wall hanging)

As you can see, I have yet to finish a LARGE quilt. All small ones. I'm kind of in a motivational rut right now due to trying a finish a larger one. I have decided, I need to stick with small!